At SXSW in March, Lady Gaga vowed to John Norris that she'd quit music if pushy industry folk wouldn't allow and support her for being herself. Turns out she was a lot closer to that reality than we probably realized. The ARTPOP star told Paradeshe was on the verge of retiring before meeting her unlikely new jazz partner Tony Bennett.

Gaga indicated that perhaps her old management team wasn't supporting her for the right reasons. "I'm not going to say any names, but people get irrational when it comes to ­money—with how they treat you, with what they expect from you...But if you help an artist, it doesn't give you the right, once the artist is big, to take advantage of them."

Luckily, the 88-year-old crooner came in to Mother Monster's life just in time.

"Then I spent a lot of time with Tony," she added, referring to the recording of their jazzy Cheek to Cheek album. "He wanted nothing but my friendship and my voice. It meant a lot to me...Working with Tony has reaffirmed everything I knew but that you start to forget when your life changes and it gets really noisy. For ­Tony, it's all about great music."

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The holiday season is upon us and no one else is more excited than the Queen of Christmas herself, Mariah Carey. After kicking of her annual "All I Want For Christmas Is You" concert series at the Beacon Theatre the night before, Mimi continued spreading her holiday cheer and lit up the Empire State Building in celebration of their new holiday light show.